Blood of Eden Page 6

  Her bedroom was tidy, the bed made. There were no medicine bottles on the nightstand.

  This room looked nothing like mine when I was sick.

  I wandered into the bathroom, still not sure what I was looking for. It was spotless too, nothing out of place. I felt kind of creepy taking a peek in her medicine cabinet, but I needed to see if she had any medications that might indicate she was treating symptoms of dengue hemorrhagic fever. I knew the symptoms could appear anywhere from three to fourteen days after infection, but they were severe. Chills, fever, rash, vomiting—eventually leading to a shocklike state. I don’t know how anyone could ignore those kinds of symptoms.

  I found a bottle of expired over-the-counter pain reliever and a brand-new, unopened box of cold tablets. No antibiotics. Not even a bottle of Pepto.

  Was it possible she’d felt no symptoms until immediately before she’d died?

  I wandered out into the hallway, checked the second bedroom, which looked nothing like the rest of the house, from what I’d seen. With the dark walls, clutter, and clothes strewn about, I surmised it was the habitat of a teenager. I confirmed it with a quick look at the desk. Buried under a mountain of books and papers, CDs and DVDs, was a photograph of a blond girl with braces; her arms were flung over the shoulders of two girlfriends.

  Not wholly convinced a person couldn’t catch a disease in that room, I headed down the hall to the third bedroom, which had been converted into a cozy home office. The desk’s top was clear of clutter, the laptop shut off, the cover shut. Behind the desk, the window’s shades were up. The house sat so close to its neighbor, I could make out the details of the Justin Bieber poster hanging on the hot pink wall in what must’ve been a kid’s bedroom next door. I moved closer to the window to get a better look.

  Was this bedroom, with its bed piled high with stuffed animals and its desk cluttered with the trappings of a child—a bug house, the Potato Head family, and a plush unicorn—the average room of a kid?

  When I was younger, I’d been anything but average. And now I assume, my room had been as unusual as myself. My walls hadn’t been papered with pages ripped out of teen magazines, like this one. The yellow walls—painted that shade because my mother had read yellow stimulated brain cells—had been completely obscured by prints by Renoir, Gauguin, and Monet, long before I’d graduated from elementary school. My desk had been buried under a mountain of inventions—gadgets and gizmos I’d erected from disassembled small appliances.

  There’d been a very noticeable lack of stuffed critters on my bed.

  Allergies. Polyester-filled plushies were dust mite magnets.

  Something thumped downstairs, and I tugged the string, lowering the blinds, turning back to the task at hand. Hoping our victim might keep a journal on her computer, I opened it and powered it up. Luck was on my side—she hadn’t set up a password.

  I was in.

  The wallpaper was a photograph of Deborah Richardson and the blond-haired teenager from the photograph in the messy room. First thing I checked was her Web browser. My fave Web sites—the ones I visited every day—launched automatically when my browser opened. If my luck continued, Deborah Richardson’s would do the same thing.

  Bingo.

  Deborah was an eBay shopper. Her Yahoo! mail page loaded. I skimmed the messages in her in-box. Spam. She’d left nothing unread before she died. That told me she’d signed on and opened her e-mail that morning before leaving for work. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, so I shut down the computer. There didn’t seem to be anything useful on it.

  Out in the hallway, I met JT.

  “Find anything?” he asked, chewing on the end of his pen.

  “Nothing. It’s like she woke up that morning and everything was normal. She checked her e-mail, made her bed, got dressed, and headed for work, just like any other day. I don’t see any sign that she was sick, not even some aspirin. I don’t know what we’re looking for.”

  He smacked his notebook with his pen. “The fiancé didn’t give me much to work with either.”

  “There is a teenager living here too, though. Maybe we could talk to her, ask if she noticed her mother being sick.”

  “Yes, Chapman told me. She’s a counselor at a summer camp. She had to go up a couple of weeks before camp starts for training.” He motioned toward the stairs with a tip of his head. “Ready to head out?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I clomped down the stairs after him, trying not to notice how broad his shoulders looked from that angle. “You said she died from complications of dengue hemorrhagic fever. What exactly killed her?”

  “The ME hadn’t completed a full autopsy yet, of course, but liver damage was the early diagnosis.” Pausing midway down the staircase, he turned to look up at me. “I think I saw a neighbor at home. Maybe she noticed something. Let’s go talk to her.”

  “Okay.” I followed him down the remaining stairs, sort of glancing this way and that. I was hoping if there was something out of the ordinary in the house, it would catch my eye. In the foyer, we said good-bye to Trey Chapman, after having verified that the daughter, Julia, had been away since the beginning of last week and wouldn’t be returning until late tomorrow. Then I officially gave up; my first search for clues had been an utter failure.

  So far, I was about as useful to the FBI as a freezer to an Eskimo.

  Outside, JT pointed at the house on the east side of the Richardsons’ home, the one I’d been peeping into earlier. “The neighbor was working on the flower beds. I saw her from the window.”

  We followed a stone path around the side of the neighbor’s house. JT stopped at the wooden gate closing off the backyard. He called out, “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  After a little bit of rustling, a woman shuffled around the corner. She tipped her head and pushed back the brim of her straw gardening hat to wipe her forehead with a gloved hand. “Yes?”

  JT flashed his credentials. “Agent Thomas, with the FBI. We’d like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.” The woman wandered toward us. She looked puzzled as she stopped at the gate and draped a hand over its top. “How can I help you? This won’t take long, will it? I have to go to work in a while.”

  “Not more than five minutes, tops. Did you happen to notice anything unusual about your neighbor in the past couple of days?” He pointed at Deborah Richardson’s house.

  She thought for a moment, shook her head, then glanced at the victim’s home, as if it might tell her something. “No. Not that I can think of. Her daughter, Julia, has been gone. She’s a summer camp counselor. With her away, the house has been quieter than normal. Though Debbie keeps to herself, anyway. Why?”

  He toyed with his spiral notebook as he asked, “Did you know she died yesterday?”

  The woman’s eyes widened. Her gloved hand smacked over her mouth. “Died?” After a beat, she added, “That poor child, losing her mother. Was she ... murdered?”

  “There’s nothing to suggest it was murder, ma’am,” JT said.

  “Then why is the FBI investigating?” She glanced at me.

  “We’re just following up on some information that may or may not be related to her death,” I said, repeating what JT had told Chapman earlier.

  “This is very surprising.” The woman chewed her lower lip. “Did you talk to the boyfriend? If you’re looking for someone suspicious, I’d check him out first.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked, slanting a glance at JT.

  Chances were, our victim hadn’t been murdered, but had simply ignored her symptoms—how and why?—and had died when she started bleeding internally. But Chief Peyton had decided we were treating this case like a murder investigation. So, that was what I was going to do. If nothing else, it could prove to be good practice for when I got my job with the BAU.

  A suspicious boyfriend could be a good lead in a murder investigation.

  “Well”—the woman tapped her chin with an index finger—“on tho
se police shows, isn’t it always the husband or boyfriend who kills the victim?”

  I nodded. “Generally, yes—”

  “I think they were having troubles,” the neighbor said. “It was strange. He seemed to be living with her. But only for a month or so. I believe he moved out only last week.”

  “Moved out?” I repeated, giving JT a pointed look.

  JT’s lips thinned. His neck turned red. He swung around and glared at Debbie Richardson’s house.

  Trey Chapman’s car was gone.

  The neighbor continued talking. “Yes, I heard some fighting. And then I saw him packing up his car. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t been back since.”

  “He was in the house today,” I told her.

  She grimaced. “Really? That surprises me. I don’t think the breakup was a friendly one.”

  Now I was confused. Trey hadn’t mentioned that he was an ex-fiancé. I kicked myself for not looking in the bedroom closet. That would’ve told us if he was living there or not. I could say 100 percent for certain that I hadn’t noticed any man gear in the master bathroom. No shavers, shaving cream, aftershave, hair products. No toilet seat left up. That should’ve raised some red flags.

  I was the world’s worst detective.

  All of this raised one vital question: if he’d broken up with Debbie Richardson, what was he doing at the house today?

  “Did you notice if your neighbor was sick recently?” I asked. “Did she have the flu in the past couple of weeks? Did she miss work at all?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  JT, who was visibly gritting his teeth, handed the woman a card. “Thank you for your help. If you think of anything else, please feel free to call me.”

  We both looked back at Deborah Richardson’s house.

  “Damn it!” JT mumbled as he stomped toward the home once more.

  We weren’t going to get back in the house now. Nor were we going to get the chance to ask Trey Chapman if he was a fiancé or an ex-fiancé.

  Walking alongside a visibly frustrated JT, I asked, “Do you think the neighbor’s right about the breakup?”

  JT paused in front of the house. “If she is, Trey Chapman should go to the top of the persons-of-interest list.” He rammed his fingers through his hair. “I’m going to make a call, let the lead detective know what we found out. We need to verify whether they were broken up or not, ASAP.” He went to his car.

  “What do you think? Workplace next?” I suggested over his car’s roof. “Maybe someone there will know if they broke up.”

  “Good thinking.” JT jerked the door open and slumped into the seat.

  After having a quick chat with Debbie Richardson’s most recent employer, we were stumped. She hadn’t called in sick, not once in over a year. She’d shown no signs of illness prior to her death, and she’d said nothing about any troubles with her fiancé. I spent the car ride back to the FBI Academy staring at the notes I’d scrawled in my notebook. There’d been no mention today of vampires; I decided to ask JT, “Have we given up on the notion that some kind of paranormal activity played a role in this death?”

  Navigating his car onto a freeway that looked more like a parking lot than a highway, JT shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

  “So, do you really believe there are paranormal creatures out there, committing crimes—assault, rape, murder?” When he didn’t answer right away, I added, “I promise, I won’t tell the chief if you don’t believe in ghosts and goblins.” Still nothing. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks the whole paranormal angle is a joke.”

  “Okay.” He sighed. The car rolled to a stop behind a school bus packed full of kids. They were making funny faces at us through the back windows. He made one back at them. “You’re not the only one. I have a few doubts.” He inched the car forward when the bus moved up. “I took the job because I felt it would be good experience. I knew Peyton was having a hard time getting applicants. I knew every member of the team would be valued. And so, I saw it as a shortcut to getting out from behind a desk and into the field. I requested a transfer.”

  “You were right about that,” I said, chuckling. “I haven’t spent any quality time in my cubicle, and I’m an intern.”

  “No matter what, if we do our jobs well, we’ll both benefit.” He glanced over his shoulder and eased the car into the right lane. Our exit was up ahead. “If the unit is eventually disbanded, I’ll leave with a hell of a lot more in-field experience than I would have if I hadn’t transferred. So will you. Assuming you apply for a full-time position after graduating.”

  “Sounds like a good career move on your part.”

  “Would’ve been nice, though, if Peyton had been able to attract at least one more senior agent. Fischer’s been around a while. The rest of us are relatively new. Don’t have the experience to do the job.”

  “All you can do is your best.”

  “Yeah. But if I’d had some experience under my belt, maybe I wouldn’t have fucked up with Trey Chapman.”

  “You didn’t ‘fuck up.’ How were you supposed to know they might have broken up?” When JT didn’t respond, I asked, “What’s next?”

  “We dig up all we can on Chapman.”

  The “Clock of Doom” read twenty hours, twenty-eight minutes, and thirty-six seconds when I strolled into the unit a little while later. I had a white paper bag full of greasy burgers and fries in one hand, a half-empty cola in the other. JT had left, saying he had a personal matter to take care of. He asked if I’d do some digging on Chapman.

  Feeling slightly guilty for sitting in an office, munching fries while somebody out there, somewhere, was living the final twenty hours of her life, I headed to my desk and flipped on my Netbook as I fought to consume the messy burger without slopping ketchup and mayo on the keyboard.

  I wasn’t “Miss Hacker-chick,” like Brittany Hough. Nor did I have open access to all the systems she did, so I accepted the fact that I would need to ask for her help. It was painful, but necessary.

  I put on my big-girl panties and prepared to talk to her.

  After making sure I wasn’t wearing condiments on my face, I headed into her office to ask her to do some digging for skeletons in Chapman’s closet. That task done, I headed back to my desk.

  A certain someone, who happened to have stolen my internship, came strolling into the unit just as I sat. Gabe gave me a casual wave as he sauntered by. “Hey, Skye. What’s up?”

  I spun my chair around to watch him go to the cubicle behind me and flop into the chair like he owned it. Adding insult to injury, he kicked his feet up on the desktop and grinned.

  I knew that grin.

  My gut twisted. “What are you doing here?”

  He picked at his fingernails. “Kicking back and chillin’ for a few.”

  Nothing like stating the obvious.

  I gave him a mean scowl. “Yeah, but shouldn’t you be doing that down in the BAU?”

  “No. Why would I do that?” He looked confused. Perplexed. Mystified. It was a convincing performance. The boy—I emphasize boy—was one hell of an actor. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time I’d seen his thespian skills at work.

  It had been my senior year in high school, when he’d pretended to like me so I’d help him with physics. I’d just turned fifteen. He was two years older. And much more experienced. He’d charmed me through hours of tutoring every afternoon and—eventually—out of my clothes.

  Thanks to all my hard work, he pulled what would’ve been a B- up to an A, which led to him being accepted into the National Honor Society. And thanks to his hard you-know-what, and the bone-melting kisses that had preceded the loss of my virginity, I’d had nothing but trouble for years to come.

  You see, no sooner had he gotten what he’d wanted from me than he was lobbing my shattered heart back at me and turning his smoldering dark eyes on his next victim, Lisa Flemming.

  It was my first, my only, heartbreak. I was so devastated, I failed my AP chemi
stry final exam. And I blew the interview with the Naval Academy recruiter, which ultimately cost me a promising career as a naval officer.

  Truth be told, that part was probably a blessing in disguise.

  I scoffed. “Bravo. You just might get an Oscar for that performance.”

  “I’m not acting, Sloany. Why would I be chillin’ in the BAU when I’m working for the PBAU ?”

  Working for the ... ? No. Effing. Way!

  A rage like none I’d ever felt before burned through my body like a surge of magma, threatening to blast off the top of my head. I had to clamp my mouth shut to cut off the stream of profanities that surged up my throat.

  Gabe was working for the PBAU now, after causing me to lose the internship of my dreams?

  “Why?” I managed to mumble through gritted teeth as I searched the room for a way to cause his accidental death. I wondered if there were security cameras in the room; and if there were, how might I pull this off?

  “Come on. It’s obvious they need my help. Why would I stick with doing grunt work for the BAU? It was a terrible waste of resources.”

  “Resources?” I spat, rummaging through my desk drawers. Death by ... stapler? Nah. I’d never convince anyone he was stupid enough to staple himself to death accidentally.

  “My brilliant mind, of course.” He cupped the back of his head and rocked the chair back.

  I bit my tongue. Someday, hopefully soon, someone else would poke a hole in his overinflated ego. It wouldn’t be me. But if I was lucky, I’d be there to watch him deflate.

  Maybe I could knock into the chair, causing him to fall backward, striking his head on a ... on a ... ?

  No, that would be too gruesome and painful. Even a job-stealing, virgin-despoiling jerk didn’t deserve to have his skull cracked open like an egg.

  “I requested a transfer,” he continued explaining, oblivious to my thoughts of vengeance, “and Chief Peyton was all too happy to welcome me aboard.” He winked. “I’m gonna kick some vampire ass.”